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tary services.^173 Sometimes, relatives or trustees do apparently under-
take economic transactions on behalf of females.^174 Menu concludes:
“It seems that women had a full capacityof rights, but that in daily
life they often left to their husbands the exerciseof those rights.”^175
The God’s Wives of Amun may have been required to remain
virgins, but this is still an undecided point.^1764.4 Slavery
Numerous texts seem to deal with the sale of slaves, although the
interpretation of these “slave-sale” transactions is still disputed. Menu
proposes that they are not actually slave sales but “are in fact work
contracts of short term to repay a debt or to engage in work.”^177
Slaves are included in the endowments (in the Stèle de l’apanageand
the stela of Sheshonq), perhaps to cultivate in the fields.^178 In the
Nubian period, slaves are sometimes called “men of the North.”^179
In P. Louvre 3228d (dated 688) a man and his sister cede to a
woman their slave for the sum of two debenand four kite. It seems
that the two are selling the slave in order to cover the costs of the
burial of their parents.^180
The dispute in P. Louvre 3228c (703) also revolves around a slave/
servant called “a man of the North.”^181 In that document, it is inter-
esting to note that the father’s name is omitted after the slave’s own
name.^182
On the religious level, the sale of the shawabti servants/slaves in
P. BM 10800 is represented as a sale of ̇m.w, “slaves/servants.”^183(^173) Menu, “Business.. .,” 199.
(^174) Ibid. See also Parker, Saite Oracle Papyrus.. ., 50.
(^175) Menu, “Business.. .,” 205.
(^176) Bryan, “In Women.. .,” 43.
(^177) See Manning, “Land and Status.. .,” 157. See also Menu, Recherches I...,
184–99; Seidl, Ägyptische Rechtsgeschichte.. ., 45–46.
(^178) Eyre, “Feudal Tenure.. .,” 125–26. See also Eyre, “Work.. .,” 208; Vernus,
Tanis.. ., 106–07.
(^179) Malinine, Choix.. ., 45.
(^180) Ibid., 47. Cf. also P. Louvre E 3228 F (old B), in which a man declares to
a colleague that three female slaves and one male slave have been sold in order
to provide funerary expenses of two persons (Griffith, Papyri.. ., vol. 3, 15).
(^181) Malinine, “Jugement.. .,” 165. On this term, see also Vleeming, “Sale of a
Slave.. .,” 14.
(^182) Malinine, “Jugement.. .,” 170.
(^183) Seidl and Wildung, “Uschebtikauf.. .,” 292.
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